


migratory birds of the dmv

by Poose



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avenger Cameos - Freeform, Birds, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, But ya'll can fuck right off, Cooking, Emotions, Established Relationship, Everyone talks shit about Hawkguy in MCU fics, Fluff, Food, Friendship, Hand Jobs, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, World needs more Pizza Dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-25 13:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2622749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poose/pseuds/Poose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Wilson shares a house in Bloomingdale with his super soldier boyfriend and an assortment of assassins and miscellaneous Avengers. Some days, all he wants is a little alone time with Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	migratory birds of the dmv

**Author's Note:**

  * For [triedunture](https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/gifts).



The heavy thunk of metal hitting a target wakes him from a sound sleep. His mind jumps out of REM as his body reacts. His eyes pop open, fists clenched up tight as he fumbles for a sidepiece that he can’t feel. His nose fills with the smell of scorched metal and sand vaporized into glass and he can't move from where he's stuck. 

Falling. 

_Dying?_

A beat of his heart and then Sam blinks himself into the present: blinds cover the windows, pale blue sheets, twisted up beside him.

He’s inside. A house with a roof. No need to seek shelter. The bed is warm and he is alone in it. The clanging noise is a coming from outside, where, he now remembers, there’s a rental dumpster for the gut rehab taking place three doors down. Between that and the endless water pipe construction, it had taken a quarter of an hour to find a parking spot yesterday.

Sam exhales as he comes back to himself, allowing the tension to leave his body for another waking day, and rolls out of bed. Call it conditioning, but lazing around while the morning’s getting on strikes Sam as wrong. The dented pillow beside him says he’s not alone in this belief.

Like any good soldier he makes their bed immediately. It’s the work of a moment to fluff out the pillows and straighten the sheets. When his personal space is tidy, Sam feels at ease. Unfortunately, he sees as he opens the door to the living room, his houseguests hold themselves to less stringent standards.

Sam surveys the damage. Shoes in a pile by the tv stand. A pair of gray socks, a hole in one toe, tossed over the back of his couch. Greasy pizza boxes await disposal on the coffee table next to a clutch of empties, Clint’s Labatt tallboys, Bucky’s birch beer. Sam gathers them in his hands to take to the bin which, damn it, is full -- again -- where an empty plastic bottle of his Tropicana low-acid, vitamin D added, medium pulp orange juice teeters on top of a mountain of bottles, cans, and empty milk cartons.

The bottles clack against the counter as Sam sets them down with a heavy sigh. He writes ORANGE JUICE on the whiteboard. In alternating tones of blue and black, the smudged list now reads --

ORANGE JUICE  
cookie dough (this written in Clint’s impossible chicken scratch)  
beer (the same)  
rye bread (Bucky wrote this one; only he and Natasha like the stuff. Sam thinks it smells like feet)  
cat food (in Natasha’s perfectly formed architect capitals) under which Steve has thoughtfully added) dog food  
bananas (Steve)  
cottage cheese (Steve)  
paper towels (Sam)  
safflower seeds (Sam)  
sunflower seeds (Sam)  
(and the laconic but demanding teenage request for) SNACKS!!!

The right-hand side of the board contains a running list of things they need for the house. When Bucky moved in downstairs, Sam had rummaged in the linen closet and located an old set of towels. A little frayed around the edges, but Bucky had taken them to the basement without complaint, and he’d washed them every week, along with the sheets from the futon. Sam had put his plans for the basement bathroom - heated towel racks, granite floors, and a freestanding tub big enough to hold two grown men - on hold.

Three vets, who had an average age of seventy-five if you included Sam - in his house was weird enough, but they got by okay. Some days it was a sitcom, other days...it was M.A.S.H. without the laugh track. He shuttled between counseling gigs and support groups, the VHA and the VA. Steve took Bucky to his appointments, and when he got called up on Avengers business, he’d take the Amtrak, and Sam would do the driving.

In the car, Bucky mostly stared out the window and avoided eye contact. Sam yapped about his own shit, as a distraction. Hikes he wanted to take. What kinds of song birds liked brush and which preferred the treetops. Had Bucky looked at the feeders lately? They were getting jays like crazy. Even the squirrels hadn’t scared them off. Migratory patterns. The Stax back catalog. What they were going to have for dinner, and did Bucky want to help roll out the pasta dough?

They three had a routine going for about as many weeks, at which time Natasha returned to America - he thought she might have been in Pakistan, but he knew better than to pry - and took up semi-permanent residence in the guest room. She had zero stuff and kept herself to herself, a lot like Bucky. Sometimes Sam would get up for a glass of water in the middle of night and find them sitting side by side on his couch, engrossed in their books.

For about ten days after that the four of them managed with only those two sets of towels, the washing machine humming near constantly.

Barton showing up was the final straw in the towel situation: they had to make an Ikea run. The man was essentially Natasha’s tracking device, wouldn’t leave her alone, which would have been less of an issue if he hadn’t brought along his dog, and, God save them all, Natasha’s cat. They bought ten full sized towels in different colors that day. Natasha’s were black, to the surprise of absolutely no one. Clint got a pair that were purple, of all things. And Bucky, after a quarter of an hour of intensely focused deliberation and a serious, whispered conversation with Steve, returned to the cart with his pair of towels, a deep maroon, clutched to his chest.

“You want to put those in the cart?” Sam had asked, “or would you rather hold on to them?”

Bucky bit his lip. “I’ll hold them.” And he did, too, only allowing the cashier to scan them after Steve told him it was all right, and then they went right back into his arms.

Sam figured enough was enough. He bought four more towels, in pristine hotel white, which he resolutely planned to share with no one other than Steve.

His old set got used, though. They went to the bedraggled teenager who showed up on his doorstep on a rainy Sunday, wearing ratty Chuck Taylors and carrying a bow case.

Eighteen months almost to the day after Steve was released into outpatient care under Sam’s watchful eye, and his place had turned into a flophouse housing three skilled assassins, a one-eyed dog, an evil - truly, Stephen King level evil - cat, and, at least one sullen teenager, often more. The house was crowded. He’d only have to ask them to leave, and then he and Steve might be able to take showers together again. Long, long showers, with kissing that fogged up the mirror. And then he could get back to those basement plans. The tub should have massage jets all around the side.

Sam stands in his kitchen, marker in hand. He’s about to write _MORE FRIGGING COASTERS_ when Steve saunters in, straight from a run and barely winded. Try as he might, Sam can’t keep pace with him for even a short distance. No way will he even attempt a super solider route -- down to the Capitol from Bloomingdale, twice around the mall, with an occasional detour into Virginia if he’s so inclined -- so these days if they work out together, it’s strictly gym. Weights and crunches. Sam has half a mind to sign them up at one of the Crossfit places that have sprung up like mushrooms all over the city, if only to watch Steve swing a kettlebell around.

Steve walks straight to the fridge. Man’s hardly even broken a sweat and it’s the height of August. He rocking those sweatpants, though. If the house were empty he might be tempted to sidle up behind Steve and express his admiration, appreciation. On the counter, for preference. God, he needs to get some.

Instead he tells Steve’s - remarkable, gorgeous - backside, “We’re out of juice.”

“Again?” Steve opens the fridge and peers in the door. “Did you put it on the list?” He pulls out a carton of eggs and sets it behind him on the island. He sticks his head back in and a moment later asks, “What happened to all that cheese we had?”

Sam frowns and peers his head around to check. He’d bought two packages of pre-shredded cheddar for taco night, of that he’s certain.

“Nachos happened, Cap,” Barton calls, as he jogs down the steps in yesterday’s t-shirt, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Well, at least he’s wearing pants. He tips himself headlong onto the sofa with the dog at his feet. Barton blathers on, “Bucky had never had nachos, ever, which is a freakin’ tragedy. Can you believe that? Oh, you’re out of salsa now. And tortilla chips. Also we used up all your olives. For the nachos, which were, I have to say, crazy good. So you defs need more cheese, but make it extra sharp this time. Nachos should have -- ” he reaches for the remote, knocking one of the pizza boxes to the floor, “--oops, Lucky, don’t eat that, it’s garlic butter -- some zing to them.” The dog whimpers. “Is that coffee? I smell coffee.”

Sam squeezes the marker in his fist. He ignores Barton to hunch over the whiteboard, onto which he scrawls COASTERS. Another household item Sam now needs a few dozen more of. If he leaves them on every available wooden surface, maybe Barton will get the hint and use one for a change. The marker poised over the grocery column he writes olives. To be precise, salt cured black Moroccan olives, which demand a trip to Union Market.

Steve brushes past him on his way to the silverware, hand gentle on his back.

“Morning, Barton,” he says, “Of course there’s coffee, if you can be bothered walk the extra five steps to get it.” His forehead creases as he glances down at Sam, “Good morning?”

Sam grunts as Steve, a bowl and fork in hand, drops a kiss on his cheek. As for coffee, he desperately needs some, although he has to locate a cup first. The top rack is crammed but nobody’s bothered to run it. He retrieves his Air Force mug and runs it under the tap. From the counter, Steve passes him the half and half.

“Morning,” Sam grumps back, into his coffee, which helps, a bit.

Steve has cracked six eggs into the bowl; those are just for him. “Do you want any eggs?”

“Sure,” Sam says, while Clint tosses back, “No, ‘m good with coffee.”

**

A couple hours and a whole pot of coffee later, Barton has fallen asleep on the couch, though how he has managed to do so after ingesting enough caffeine to stun a pony, with the television blaring, a dog and two teenagers sprawled across the floor, amazes Sam, and he’s ex-military: he can sleep anywhere. Kate’s fletching arrows on the carpet; her maybe girlfriend is engrossed in a comic book. He’s been reading PDFs of case studies, and when he rubs at his eyes his knuckle comes away wet. It’s midday, which is probably as good a time as any for the inevitable grocery run: he’ll miss the lunch crowd and the afternoon traffic.

He makes to stand up. “I might run to Union, restock.” Steve looks up from his notes and inclines his head in the direction of the couch, where the olive culprit is snoring lightly. Sam nods. “Whole Foods has the bulk bar,” Steve suggests, “Don’t they sell them, too?”  
“That’s not a bad idea,” he says, and nods down at the battered copy of Child, Beck, and Bertole, volume 1. “You need anything for tonight?”

Steve marks his place the red ribbon and shuts the book. “I wrote it down, but I’ll come with, if it’s okay?”

“Always.” Sam smiles. “What’s on the menu?”

Steve looks down at his notebook. “I’m going to make those peas from a couple weeks ago.”

“Those were wonderful,” Sam says. And they were. You really can’t go wrong with Julia. She taught a whole generation of Americans to cook; it’s only fitting for her to teach Steve as well. The two volumes had been a birthday present, along with the full DVD set.

“I might make these lamb chops?” Steve’s brow creases in thought, and Sam never wants to kiss him more than when he’s concentrating. “But those are spendy for so many people.”

“Well,” Sam reasons, “if you want me to throw anything on the grill, we can see what’s on sale when we get there.”

Kate interrupts their conversation. “Where are you going?” Her voice is hopeful. From beside her on the armchair - and what has he said, a thousand times, about that dog being on the damn furniture? - Lucky raises his head and whines.

“We’re going to the grocery store,” Steve tells her, as he heads into their bedroom, “and then to buy coasters.”

“Are we?” Sam asks Steve’s retreating back.

“Yes,” he tosses off behind his shoulder, “but let me get changed first.”

Sam shuts down his laptop and picks up the Child with the intention of returning it to its place on the cookbook shelf. He glances at Steve’s notebook, scanning his eyes over the list -- peas, soft lettuce, parsley (he’s got that in the garden), chicken stock -- next to which Steve has sketched a cornucopia of aromatics: a carrot, a leek, a celery stalk, and an onion. They have limbs and little faces, and are parading in front of a rendering of the French flag. The leek, in particular, wears an expression of formidable self assurance. It’s got traces of Tony Stark around the eyes. Sam wonders about the other vegetables.

A second voice pipes up. “Can we come?” Kate’s friend: America.

There are a lot of patriots living under his roof at the moment, if in name only. Sam supposes they’re okay, as far as teenagers are concerned. Avengers, Young Avengers, whatever. A team’s a team. Why they need his rowhouse as home base is a separate issue.

Sam Wilson had retired from active duty with the expectations of a quiet life. He’d wake up, make the bed, go for a run. Home and work. Family and friends. Learning how to sleep through the night. That sort of shit. He had not, precisely, expected to become a superhero sidekick, but life had a way of throwing you curveballs. With Captain America around, life was anything but quiet.

Steve comes back, dressed in Sam’s Howard t-shirt, looking for all the world like he’s shrunk it in the wash. “No,” he tells the girls, saving him the trouble of doing it. Because for all that they’re surly, puffed up with bravado the manner of teenagers the world over, Sam catches the moment when Kate’s face falls, and he’s grateful Steve took over. Sam is a terrible pushover. His own kids are going to exploit the hell out of that weakness someday.

Steve is nice, of course, even when he’s being firm. “You guys need to take Lucky for his walk, because Barton has decided to go back to sleep and Natasha’s -- Natasha’s...out.” That’s one way to put it. Vanished, more like.

“You can take Bucky, too, if he wants to. Ask him first, and make sure you knock on the door before you go in. And then, please get this mess straightened up before dinner, all right?”

“Not my mess,” America grumbles. Kate opens her mouth, then closes it without a peep. Steve cocks his head to the side as if daring her to argue with him. They all look at Clint in repose, though he doesn’t stir. It’s impressive. Never one to miss the opportunity, Sam seizes his chance to play good cop. “I’ll bring back ice cream?”

“Fine,” Kate mumbles. America shrugs and turns back to her comic book. Clint sits bolt upright like he’s sleepwalking, “Pistachio!” he demands, without so much as opening his eyes.

“Now that,” Sam says as he shuts the door behind them, “is creepy.”

The mercury’s hovering right around eighty, which wouldn’t be so awful if not for the humidity that saturates the air. Steve’s brought along his leather jacket for whatever reason, which he sets atop the neatly folded pile of reusable grocery bags in the back seat of the Jeep.

In the car, relentless street construction forces him to turn onto North Capitol the long way round, from Rhode Island, but once they’re past the hospital the road opens up. Steve cranks up the air conditioning and places his phone on the dashboard. The opening strains of a Marvin Gaye song come through the speakers, and Sam feels his mouth tug up in a smile.

They come to a standstill near the graveyard. Steve leans back against the headrest, starting on a smile of his own.“Was this the first playlist you made me?”

If only. Sam had scrolled through his track library with painstaking thoroughness. The plan had been to compile his version of the decades greatest hits: a grand seduction that would span the twentieth century. It had proven to be a nightmare.

Each track had to be scrutinized according to three distinct dimensions. First, was it any good? That was an obvious question, but Sam had appointed himself steward of Steve’s musical education, and with a mix of a dozen songs you couldn’t really swing dead weight.

Number one: Be a good song.

The second axis for measurement. Did the music get to you? Like, did it give you the itch to move, a jet-pack propulsion catapulting you up off a stool and onto the dance floor?

Number two: Would this song be a good accompaniment to, say, a run around the Tidal Basin?

Overall, his taste is tight, so fitting songs into the first two categories was mostly a matter of thinking about tempo and harmony. What got him hung up was lyrics. In addition to being fun, uptempo, and musically significant, every song had to convey Sam’s feelings in a way that was guarded enough that he could plausibly deny it. The first two had been put together so carefully. Sam had not realized, until he was waist deep in record covers, looking for the right song as opposed to the chart topper, how pop music, from the 50s right up to the present day, relied almost exclusively on the word ‘baby’ to express emotion.

Three: Does this song fall under the arbitrary but important ‘baby’ threshold?

They’re moving again. The track fades to silence; Wilson Pickett replaces it. A Mercedes with Virginia plates turns in front of him. Sam slams on the brakes, curses. “This,” he says, slowing down to put distance between their cars,“was mix number three, as I recall.”

By that point they had been out once, on an actual, honest to goodness date, not far from where they’d first met. Sam took Steve around the rest of American History, and together they gaped at Julia’s kitchen and the pressed plastic replicas, representing the dark days of American culinaria, which Steve had been fortunate enough to miss - the nightmare Jello salads, TV dinners, cake from a box - and then out for a burger. It was nearly a mile, but Sam walked Steve home in the evening light, and received not one, but two kisses on the doorstep (one on the cheek, and one on the mouth!) for his trouble.

Maybe it was the effect of dating a man from the greatest generation, but that night Sam Wilson whistled his whole way home.

Steve shoots Sam a look from the passenger seat.

“What?” he asks, torn between watching him and focusing on the road as they head in the direction of the park. It’s painful to look away, but of course he does so. For safety’s sake. “Look, man, there’s deer out here. This road is chock full of hazardous conditions.” Half of Steve’s mouth pulls back in a smile. Hm.

Okay, Sam knows that smile, although he’s seen it less frequently of late since their house got overrun with superheroes. It starts out a little bashful, the earmark of a man who would prefer not to draw attention to himself, and then -- and here’s the bit where Sam melts, to see Steve whole, to see him happy -- it careens right past self-conscious and bangs head-on into a full-fledged grin.

Sam looks back at the road, checks for stunned deer, then back down at the odometer. Back to Steve, the smile not having budged an inch in the interval. “Spit it out, Rogers.”

Steve snuggles down in his seat and says, his voice low, “You seem tense.” Sam can barely hear him over the music, but he catches the innuendo in the tone. Well, hello. Hello indeed. He raises an eyebrow, glances back over at the coy act Steve’s putting on.

“What are you implying, Captain Rogers,” he says, as level as he can. And Steve - as if the thought’s only now occurred to him - shrugs. “I was thinking,” he says, “that we could park the car. Like in one of these turn offs.” His voice is rich with suggestion.

Deer be damned, Sam does a double take. “Park park?” he says, underlining the second word. “Did y’all do that back in the day?” He slows to exactly the 35-mph limit; cops tend to lurk on this stretch, handing out speeding tickets like Halloween candy.

Steve shakes his head. “People did. Other people, I mean. I never had a car, myself, and I didn’t run with anyone else who did, either.” As they pass the intersection with Beach Drive, Sam catches sight of the park police squad car parked across the road.

“But like anyone, you take it where you can find it. Privacy was pretty hard to come by, but we made do. Movie theaters were always a good bet.”

In his mind’s eye, Sam can already picture it: a palatial cinema house, the way they used to make them. Marble columns, red velvet drapes. Steve, back before he got big, eating popcorn, all slim and gorgeous. Making eyes at some sailor on shore leave. He shakes his head in annoyance. Okay, that’s not a visual he can handle. He’s a hypocrite to be jealous, but his gut twists a bit when he thinks of anyone else touching Steve, even almost a hundred years ago. He tries to brush away the image, but Steve is painting a pretty vivid picture.

“The best times were the matinees, ‘cause they were pretty empty. Most people had to work, but they showed pictures on the weekdays, too. You could hide in the very back row in the corner? Course you had to watch out for the ushers, but usually it was too hazy from cigarette smoke to really see what anyone got up to.”

“Oh,” Sam manages, a prickle of jealousy and interest building in his stomach.

Steve carries on, seemingly unaware of the confusing effects that this little reminiscence is having on Sam.

“I mean, obviously there were limits to what you could do in a place like that, and it was always pretty tough for me to be quiet.” He blinks up at Sam, all blue-eyed innocence, like he isn’t intimately aware of how damn loud his boyfriend gets. “Still is,” Steve says, “but you already knew that about me, right? It’s so much better now that you can actually fuck me,” and Sam does pull over at that, because otherwise he will run them off the road.

“We could try it out, I suppose,” Steve continues, as the tires crunch across gravel. He puts the car in park and takes a breath before he grabs Steve by the collar and pulls him close. “What, the movie theater? Okay, that’s asking for trouble.”

“I’d do it,” Steve gasps, and Sam leans over, “Yeah, I bet you would.”

Steve lets himself be kissed, right there in the broad daylight smack dab in the middle of Rock Creek. His hand comes up to grab Sam’s shoulder as his head tips back against the headrest. When he pulls back a moment later, lightheaded, Steve’s eyes are glazed over. God, what he wouldn’t give for some privacy. To take Steve back home: make love to him, fuck him, and hit every base in between, in every room of the house - from the front stoop to the back bedroom.

“I can buy you popcorn,” Steve suggests, tongue darting out to lick his top lip, “and then we can spill it all over the floor while I blow you. That would work.”

Sam has been with Steve for a while now, and yet he still manages to be surprised at the shit he says. He gives Steve what he wants, what they both want, and growls a command. “Get in the back seat, Rogers.”

“Copy that,” Steve opens the front door and is in the back before he’s even turned off the ignition. He looks over his shoulder to see him fighting with the grocery bags, and he stifles a laugh. “Need a hand?” he asks, to which Steve says, “Keep the music on?”

Sam slides into the backseat and locks the doors. “Hey,” he says, and yeah, like it had been planned all along, the Reverend himself comes on at exactly that moment. Bass hums through the speakers. Steve, the crafty little minx, is grinning ear to ear.

“Someone was paying attention,” is all Sam manages to say. Because whatever decade of whatever century a man might have been born in, whether he liked guys or gals or a mix of them both, a man of any era would catch on pretty quick what this song was trying to communicate.

“You have your moments,” Steve drapes the leather jacket over the place where their knees touch, and the reasons for bringing along a coat in the summer time suddenly make a lot more sense now, as they burrow down under it, summer heat be damned, “and you make a very good mix tape.”

Sam nuzzles against the line of Steve’s jaw. The skin flashes pink, fades back just as quick. It’s hot, and -- oh -- sticky underneath the leather, but at the touch of his beard against his cheek, Steve shivers. Sam has to do it again, and then with his one free hand, draws him in so their mouths touch. “Is that right?” he asks, and Steve nods as his head tips back and Sam claims his mouth in another bruising kiss.

“Feels so good,” Steve mumbles, and Sam doesn’t need to see anything to know how to work him over. He’s flying blind and it doesn’t even matter. Steve’s got this thing, downright unusual for a man, where he -- not comes, exactly, but comes close. Tiny explosions: sparklers rather than bottle rockets. It’s a super soldier side effect, and it’s a big part of the reason Steve simply can’t stay quiet. “Oh,” he cries out, surprised as always by pleasure. Yeah. The movie theater is definitely out of the question. Unless they can commandeer Stark’s next time they’re in Manhattan.

Sam shakes his head to rid himself of thoughts of Tony, and then grips Steve a little tighter. Under his touch, Steve goes with it, gives himself to it. His hand piles atop Sam’s as they both focus on him; Sam can wait. He’d much prefer to wait, to watch Steve rather than chase his own end.

“Hey, baby,” he murmurs into Steve’s ear. He closes his hand, adds a flick of the wrist. Steve squirms against the seat as pleasure overtakes him, the light sparking across Steve’s vision as his mouth falls open. “It’s okay,” he says, “we’re alone now, make some noise.” He presses a dry kiss to the corner of Steve’s open mouth, moving from there along his cheek...ear...neck, until he finds a straining tendon and bites down, hard. Steve clutches at Sam’s free hand and whines as rolls across his face, sure as the tide.

“Sam,” Steve pants. “I know,” Sam soothes. His hand is so wet. “I’m here, baby, come on.” Steve twists in his grip and -- there -- he’s suddenly a lot more wet and Sam was a liar about the noise thing, because he has to clamp his free hand over Steve’s mouth so the Park Service doesn’t arrest them. His eyes fly open, shocked and hazy, and as he finishes he slumps, head knocking against Sam’s shoulder as he releases his mouth. Without disturbing Steve as much as he can, Sam reaches into the armrest for tissue to wipe off his hand, then settles back into his seat.

They rest like that for a moment, Steve a heavy weight in Sam’s arms, before he sheepishly lifts his head. “Hey,” Sam says, “you are one loud sonofabitch.”

Steve shakes his head, reaches down a little further to grab what he’s dropped. His shoulder grazes the jacket where it’s rucked up against their bodies. “Takes one to know one,” he smirks, skimming his teeth along Sam’s jawline, “and I wouldn’t think of not returning the favor.”

Sam slumps against the seat. His mouth gapes open as Steve strokes him -- even that motion graceful, the way Steve somehow manages to make every movement seem like poetry. Condensation streaks the car windows from the inside. On an average day, Steve runs hot, even without breathing hard against his mouth in a sealed metal box on a ninety degree day.

“Oh, hell--” Sam’s body jerks against Steve’s hand, a graceless twitch.

“Good?” Steve asks. He glances at all four corners of the vehicle, then right back up at Sam. “It’s okay, we have a sec. No one’s out here,” he reassures. Sam glances over his shoulder: no park rangers, no curious deer creeping on his vehicle.

Steve’s voice grows firmer, a hint of command mixed in with the plea. “Come on, Wilson.”

His name in that tone of voice? “Hell, yes,” Sam grits out. If he wasn’t close before, he would be now. The leather jacket has slipped down his chest, but he can’t care, not with Otis on the stereo and Steve’s tongue in his ear. “Oh hell,” he manages, with a gasp, “yes.”

Sam squeezes his eyes shut. Using his forearm, he pins Steve to the back of his seat. Steve goes with it, rolling them over so Sam can move freely. The leather jacket slinks to the floor and comes to rest by Steve’s tennis shoe.

He clutches at Steve’s arm as his eyes slip shut. It hurts to move, but he has to, can’t even care that his pants are somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. Steve’s hand guides him, and he goes with it, gives over to it.

“Baby, I’m--”

“Do it,” Steve says, in full-on Captain America mode. The voice of a thousand adolescent fantasies, and now, of grown-up bedroom stuff -- and fuck, maybe when the house clears out they can bust out the uniforms again, because Steve looks dapper as hell in his army ensemble, and there’s a Howling Commandos on the run in the woods scenario he’d really like to try out -- and he gets all of it, Steve and the Captain both, and it’s so good, Steve’s encouraging little noises and his relentless powerful hands and -- Sam jerks as if he’s been shot at ---

music blares, louder now, and nothing Sam Wilson would have on a mix tape, though he respects Metallica, they aren’t what you’d call his thing, exactly, and then a voice cuts in --

“Sorry to interrupt, Cap,” and even with his back turned Sam can hear the smirk. From beneath him, Steve’s whole body has gone rigid with tension. He scoots himself to the side, with an eye to getting his pants up back over his ass, because if he knows anything about Tony, it’s that he will always go for a visual read. Even if it means remote hacking of your teammate’s phone. “I mean, okay, not sorry, exactly. I mean would you look at that view? Where are you? Are you outside? In daylight?”

“--I told him to text, or call, which is what normal people do under such circumstances,” and that’s a woman’s voice. Pepper. It’s Pepper’s voice, which means that as soon as he turns his head then -- yup, there’s Tony’s face, glowing blue from the screen of Steve’s phone, and presumably off-screen, Pepper. “But you know how it is.”

“I’m offended,” Tony says.

“You’re a steam roller,” Pepper counters. “Ignore him. Hi, Steve. Hi, Sam.”

Steve sits up abruptly and leans forward into the space between the front seats. He plucks the phone from the dash, which angles the screen toward himself, and, consequently, away from Sam. “Hey, Pep. You tried. It’s really all any of us can ask for.”

“Hi,” Sam says, weakly. He yanks his pants up too quickly, but what does it matter? His testicles already hate him.

The blue light reflects off Steve’s face, illuminating the clench of his jaw. “I presume this isn’t a social call, Stark?” Sam sits up straighter. Maybe that’s where Natasha’s run off to? The calls come infrequently, but when they do... Steve’s usually the first one out the door. Sam will blaze a trail after him if he can be of help, but with Bucky to look after, well, one of them should stay.

“Actually, that reminds me,” Tony starts, “we’re having a birthday thing for Rhodey week after next. Feel like jumping out of a cake? I have a couple of outfits that would be perfect--”

Pepper cuts in, before he can get much further. “Tony!”

Sam has managed to get his pants zipped, though they cling too tightly to the front of his thighs and there’s going to be a wet spot seeping through at any moment. At least Stark can’t see through the back of his head.

“Okay,” Tony continues, chastened but momentarily. “Look, Rogers. Sorry to have to tell you this. It’s Barnes.”

“Shit.” Steve rubs his forehead. Takes a breath, shoulders tight. Sam puts a hand on his knee, and when Steve looks in his direction his eyes are full of fear. Knowing it could all come crashing down at any moment, this quiet they’ve found. It’s like walking on the edge of a knife. Lord only knows what it must be like for Bucky. “What’s he done?”

“He’s on the bridge,” Tony answers. “That’s all we know, but he’s on the bridge.”

Steve squeezes Sam’s hand; it could be so much worse. “Has he hurt anyone?” Himself?”

“There’s only so much I can read from the tracker, even with my upgrades. Pulse elevated, not unusual. We only picked him up a few minutes ago, which means he must have run there.”

Bucky has a perimeter of two miles before he sets off an alarm. They could have removed the tracking device from his shoulder. It would have been easy, the work of an hour, but Bucky had refused.

“I want you to know where I am,” he’d said, to Steve mainly, but to Sam as well. And then, eyes wide, he peered up at Steve, and then Sam, but mostly Steve, and had said, sounding very small, “I don’t want to get lost again.”

Sam had looked at Bucky like this wouldn’t even be an issue, because he was never going to let him out of his sight again. But he had promised, and Steve was a man of his word. He kept his promises. “Okay,” he’d said, “but if you ever change your mind, then we can have it taken out. We won’t even have to go to the hospital if you don’t want.”

That night, Steve had fretted over whether he’d made the right choice, and Sam had told him, over and over again, with words and with his mouth, that yes, he had, and, more to the point, it was Bucky’s choice to make.

So far they had only set it off once by accident, when they’d gone to Mount Vernon and forgotten to tell Tony. Bucky had set it off a few times when he’d wandered too far outside the boundaries of the neighborhood, and now, drawn like a homing pigeon, to the bridge.

He doesn’t even ask which bridge it is, because they all know where Bucky has gone.

“Good luck,” Tony says, and he sounds sincere. “And get back to me on the cake idea. I might have a pair of Captain America themed boxer-briefs around here somewhere.”

“Those are your underwear.” Pepper sounds appalled. Sam silently agrees. “At least buy him his own.”

“USO outfit?” Tony asks, “You’d look swell in a dress. What say you, Wilson, he’s got the legs for it.”

“Oh?” Steve says, and arches an eyebrow at the phone.

Sam lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m staying out of this for once.”

Steve gives a halfhearted little smile in his general direction. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Thanks, Stark,” he says, with a shake of his head. “Take care, Pepper.”

“Bye,” Sam adds, almost as an afterthought. Steve’s jaw twitches, not from anger this time, and Sam folds him in a hug before he can speak. The words hang in the air, unsaid.

“Hey,” he says, “it’s okay. He’s fine,” and really, Bucky had been doing so well, this kinda comes as a surprise. But that’s later. Right now, Steve is his top priority. Ten minutes ago he’d been shaking with pleasure, and now he’s on the verge of tears. “We’ll work it out, all right?” He pulls back and rubs Steve’s arm.

Steve stares at his knees as he sniffs. He draws the back of his hand over his eyes, and when he looks back at Sam he looks small, and so tired.

His heart aches to fix it. To fix them all. For it to be easy: a quick suture, a lightning flash -- not this relentless grind of trying, and slipping, and waking up to try again. Every day. Every damn day, and it goes on and on and it’s a lie, like grief, to say it gets easier. It’s a goddamn lie.The DSM-VII really isn’t much help in these situations. Same’s true for the psychology scripts.

But this situation isn’t really his to fix, and so he asks the only appropriate question, for when your cryogenically preserved super solider boyfriend has to go retrieve a brainwashed Nazi assassin who happens to be his best friend: “Do you want me to come with you?” Yeah: complicated.

Still looking at the floor, Steve shakes his head. “No,” he answers, sucking in another long breath. His chest heaves as he shakes his head again. When he blinks up at Sam the next  
time, his eyes are wet. “I mean, of course I want you to come with me. But…” he trails off.

Sam nods his acquiescence. “It’s better if it’s just you?”

“Yeah,” Steve permits himself a but moment of respite, resting his head on Sam’s shoulder for a moment. It is too brief, allowing the faint scent of rosemary shampoo to tickle the inside of his nose, before he raises himself up once more and rubs at his forehead. The crease is there again. “And it’s my turn to cook --”

“Two steps ahead of you,” Sam says, “drop me at Logan on your way. I’ll take care of dinner tonight.”

They extricate themselves from the backseat. Steve makes his way to the passenger side. The music has switched back to Sam’s mix, did so right after Tony hung up, but Supertramp sounds sadder than usual, so Sam switches to radio and puts on WAMU, who are broadcasting a Nats away game.

Twenty minutes and a near collision with a cyclist later, Sam eases into a space in front of a hydrant and puts the car in park. As he undoes his seatbelt, the security system chirps a warning which he ignores. The keys he leaves in the ignition as he walks around to the passenger door. It swings open but Steve makes no move to stand or even look at him.

Staring off into the middle distance like he’s gathering all his courage to get up, switch places, and go after Bucky yet again. Sam’s seen him run into HYDRA nests with less fear in his eyes. If he asked him right now, he’d be willing to wager that Steve would prefer to jump out of a plane into a full-on war zone, because when you go to war, you only have to fight the battle once. Physically, at least.

He braces himself on the roof of the car. The black metal is too hot to touch directly, but the rubber window seal doesn’t hurt too bad. “I can come,” he reiterates, “you know that, right?”

Steve turns his head and looks at Sam as if he’s seeing him for the first time. His lips are pale in the bright sunshine. The blank expression stays as he says, “I need the keys,” and holds out his hand.

Sam points at the keys dangling in the ignition. With glazed eyes Steve follows the sweep of his arm. “Oh,” he says. He remains motionless in the passenger seat.

This looks bad. His protective instincts kick in. “Sure you can drive?” In his mind he’s already come up with three alternative scenarios: they park the car near the Mall and Steve can head over on foot. Option two he drops Steve on the bridge and loops around to Arlington until he gets a call to pick them up. The third choice is an out and out ambush, Sam driving the car up only long enough for Steve to hop out and bundle Bucky into the back seat. After he’s given it a moment’s thought, Sam withdraws that option from the table.

When he speaks, it’s as much for Sam’s benefit as his own. “I’ll be okay,” he declares, once to the windshield and then, turning and putting his hands on his knees to stand, repeats the declaration. “I’ll be okay.”

“You will,” Sam reassures him. “Call when you know something, if you can.”

“I’ll try my best,” Steve says. He slams the door and then drops an absent kiss on Sam’s cheek before he heads to the driver’s side.

Sam watches him drive off down 15th. “All any of us can do,” he says, as the Jeep recedes into the distance. It’s a nice sentiment. And then he swears, because he forgot to take the damn reusable grocery bags.

Twenty cents of surcharges later, Sam and his four disposable paper bags are riding home in the back of an Uber. He bought more prepared food than he’d like to, but if Bucky is at the start of an episode, then Steve won’t be in any position to cook, and it’s better than constant takeout at least. Whole Foods even had coasters -- ugly, synthetic cork things, but like those racks of parcooked ribs he bought, something was always better than nothing.

After he’s put the groceries away, set some water to boil, chopped an onion and a couple pounds of collards, and is in the process of grating Gruyere (Bittman’s adult mac and cheese, he can make it by heart), his phone pings with Steve’s text. Cheese streaks the screen because he doesn’t even bother to wipe off his hands.

 _Walking around. IDK when we are gonna be back_.

_Bucky?_

_OK. Quiet more than anything. It doesnt seem as bad as its been._

_Did you go back to the Mall?_

_Too crowded, we came to the botanical gardens._

(Sam blinks at his phone.)

_I’ve got dinner. Come home soon._

_[...]_

There is a pause, the interminable three dots which indicate that Steve is writing back. Sam takes the opportunity to wipe his hands on a kitchen towel and gives his greens a stir. Vegan, if you can believe it, and still damn good.

_Hope so. Love you._

_Love you too._

It’s only four of them for dinner. Kate’s talkative, which is fine because he’d rather listen tonight. There are days when Sam’s pretty well tapped out, and it looks like this is one of them. He can barely keep his eyes open all through the meal. America seems tenser than usual, but the way she looks at Kate -- the way Kate looks right back at her. Sam stabs at his mac and cheese; it makes a scraping sound across his plate. He’ll ask Steve when he gets home - no, tomorrow. Over the weekend. Someone should talk to her, and for all his good qualities, Barton doesn’t exactly radiate paternal concern.

Dish duty falls to Clint, since Sam cooked, but he manages to rope the girls in to helping him. Sam checks his phone for the tenth time in as many minutes, sees that Steve hasn’t written, and places it face-down on the coffee table. He picks it up again and again as the girls drift off to their room upstairs. The plug is pulled from the sink, and the sound of water sluicing down the drain is audible even over the TV.

Natasha’s cat meows in the kitchen.

“What are you feeding that cat?” Sam asks, as he cranes his neck over the back of the couch. “It had better not be my anchovies.”

“Cat food?” Clint says in response. He’s peeled back the lid of a can of organic salmon and rice that was more expensive than most human food.

“Well, put it on a paper plate,” Sam admonishes him. “I didn’t get to the pet store today.”

“Dude, she really wants this. Hell, I kind of want it.” The cat yowls, threads her way through Clint’s legs as he rummages in the pantry for a disposable plate.

The door flies open and Natasha sweeps in, her hair a halo of red curls. The summer humidity works in favor of that particular style.

“Hey, Barton,” she acknowledges her partner with a quick glance. The cat looks up, sniffs the air, and goes right back to its food. “Are they home?”

“Not yet,” Sam says, and pats the couch beside him. “Did you eat?”

“On the plane.”

If you didn’t know Natasha, you might assume her deadpan tone reflected a total lack of emotion. That she was, if you believed the talking heads, as ice cold as the Artic tundra. A stateless assassin, a woman without a country, a family, a home. You might miss out on the way her left eyebrow raised the tiniest fraction, the distance so narrow you could rest it on a knife’s edge, and no one would blame you if you didn’t register that as heartache.

“Who told you?”

That’s a watered down version of the question Sam wants to ask. Even after years of working covert ops, it’s hard to tamp down the natural human curiosity about what your friends are up to. But he keeps his mouth shut on that front. Where she was, who she was with. What she was doing, and if it involved wet work...he shudders. Sam is a good soldier, and a soldier doesn’t ask too many questions.

Natasha shrugs. She takes her sunglasses off the top of her head and hooks them to the front of her shirt. “Stark called.” With a heavy exhale, she sinks into the couch and folds her hands in her lap. For maybe a minute she gives the impression that she could wait forever. The cat jumps up onto the back of the couch and begins to wash its face.

“Tasha,” says Barton. coming over from the kitchen. “It’s okay.”

“Is it?”

“Get down,” he tells the cat. "Not on my couch.”

“I’ll take her. C’mon, Lucky.” Clint scoops the cat up under one arm; it howls in protest. Lucky whines in sympathy.

Clint trundles off in the direction of the guest room, and Natasha follows him. Guess that means Natasha isn’t sleeping downstairs tonight. Or maybe she will. Who can say.

Sam turns on the TV and snuggles down into his couch while he waits.

The door creaks open an hour later; a black-hooded blur moves past him, almost too quick to register.

“Hey,” says Steve, and his sweet, sad voice cuts through the fog of drowsiness. “Sorry we missed dinner.”

Sam rubs the sleep from his eyes and yawns. “I can make you a plate,” he mumbles, with the good intention of getting up and doing just that, but Steve pushes gently on his shoulder until he is resting against the cushions.

“I’ll do it,” he assures Sam, “Besides, you look comfy.”

“Long day,” Sam says, voice flat.

He means for Steve, with the Bucky situation, but stupid mister selfless says, “Of course. No wonder you’re tired.”

“Mmm,” he says, without the energy to protest, and allowing his eyes to close. The clink of plates and silverware runs counterpoint to the quiet hum of the television. Natasha trots down the stairs, and she and Steve speak softly in the kitchen for a few minutes before leaving. One of them - Steve, probably - turns out the overhead lights. The privacy of his own room beckons, but he will wait. If Natasha stays, then Steve might come to bed. It’s too big for him alone, anymore.

Sleep washes over him, though it is restless. The couch is really too narrow for his wide frame, and he turns from side to side in an attempt to get comfortable. He blinks his eyes open long enough to switch off the television, arm extended to fumble with the remote so he doesn’t have to stand. The inside of his mouth is dry but his water glass is empty, and the sink is way too far away when his legs are filled with sand. From the corner of his eye, their bedroom door stands ajar.

Sam yawns once, a massive stretch that extends to his ears, and pillows his head on his arm as his eyes drift shut once more. He’ll get up in a second.

As it succumbs to the second wave of sleep, his body gives up trying to fight him. When he wakes with a jolt - Kimmel over, an infomercial in its place - his legs are numb and Steve has yet to return. He will sleep downstairs, Sam is certain now. Along with Natasha, the two of them enfolded around Bucky: platonic, he hopes. Jealousy doesn’t sit well on him. He should haul his ass to bed, find a spot in the middle of the mattress and a pillow to wrap himself around in the meantime. They have tomorrow. They have a hundred, a thousand tomorrows.

The couch welcomes him like an embrace, even if he is too hot. And suddenly his breath won’t come, like it’s trapped in his chest, like his whole body is being crushed under a burning hot weight and Sam can’t move, can’t breathe. He’s suffocating, and he needs to wake up, right now, assess the situation and find a way out but he cannot feel his legs --

“Sam,” says a voice, “Sam, baby.”

Sam grunts. He peels open an eye and is greeted with the darkness of his couch cushion, which his face is smushed against. Tipping his head back a few inches is enough to allow fresh air to circulate in front of his face, and he inhales deep through his nose, blearily awake enough now to realize he isn’t trapped in a burning vehicle in a desert convoy.

There’s still the matter of his immobile legs, however.

“Hey.” The voice floats down. “Were you dreaming?”

Sam twists himself until he’s flat on his back, and he looks up at Steve, who is propped up on his forearms, bracketing Sam’s body with his own. His breath washes hot across Sam’s cheek as he leans down, releasing all that heavy weight to compress against his chest. Only his arms retain feeling, and those he lifts to wrap around Steve’s back. Of course he needs to be held, after a day thick with emotion. There might be another cry on its way, and that’s okay too.

A suggestion, that they relocate this to the bedroom, is in the process of forming in Sam’s brain when Steve shifts against him.

“Sam,” he says, into his ear. “Sam, please.”

“Please, what?” he’s saying, and before he can really register it, Steve’s mouth is on him all at once, kissing his mouth, his face, before burying his head in Sam’s neck, and repeating himself.

“Sam, please. I need you. Need to feel you.”

“Okay,” he answers, the clouds clearing from his head at the words. Steve needs him; the circumstances are incidental. He shifts his leg to the left, making space between Steve’s thighs, and that must give Steve something else he needs. A physical yearning, a bit of touch or friction, because he moans and rolls his hips. Through his shorts Sam can feel that’s he’s hard, and as his own sleepiness erodes away, he’s on his way there himself.

“Kiss me,” Steve demands. His mouth is like a furnace; his skin is burning hot to the touch. “Damn it,” he says again, "Sam.”

“I’m here,” and he is, he is. The bed would be better. A door he can shut.

But their bedroom is ten long steps away, the dozen seconds it will take practically a lifetime when he contemplates the effort it will take to roll Steve off of him. Unthinkable, when Steve is so warm and close, when he rubs the length of his body against Sam’s own. A full body shudder tickles his spine as Steve licks his ear, breath hot as his lips drag across Sam’s skin. He grabs a handful of Steve’s t-shirt, and Steve whines.

It’s not enough for him.

“We should go to the bedroom,” Sam protests, because they have stuff in the bedroom. Space. A door, which he glances at. The motion turns his face away from Steve.

“I don’t care.” Steve tugs Sam back to face him, a hand on his face. “Just touch me,” he pants, and Sam relents. It’s no use protesting. Steve is bigger, and stronger, but the main thing he is? Stubborn.

“What do you need?” Sam asks, as his hands slide under the fabric of Steve’s t-shirt. _His_ t-shirt, a decade old, washed soft in the machine. The skin of his back is smooth, his muscles sleek. 

“Anything,” Steve says, but he has ideas of his own, hands tucked in to the space between their bodies to yank down Sam’s basketball shorts, followed quickly by his own. “Please, Sam. I need to feel you.”

“How?” Sam struggles to sit up, but is immediately pushed back against the cushions. The light from the street casts a blue shadow as Steve straddles his prone body. He arranges his body so it butts up against Sam’s erection, and then he reaches behind himself and takes hold of Sam, slotting him in to the crease of his ass.

“Jesus,” Sam wheezes, and Steve bends forward for another kiss. One hand stays there, in the place where they touch but are not joined. Steve is frenzied with need, of a more desperate quality than earlier that afternoon. That was a need to find relief from a physical pressure, whereas this--

Sam cries out as Steve rocks his body back and forth, his fingers grazing the sensitive tip of his penis as it bumps against his tailbone.

\-- this is something else entirely. This is Steve who needs to touch and be touched because that is as close as Sam can get to fixing it.

“Shhh,” he soothes, “kiss me, that’ll shut you up.”

“Me?” Sam wheezes. Of the two of them, Steve’s the loud one, but as he covers Sam’s lips with his hand to keep him quiet, and then covers his fingers with his own lips, and then sucks Sam’s tongue into his mouth and kisses him, and kisses him and won’t let him up for air.

Steve lays down on top of him; the couch cushion sinks lower from his weight. He burrows into the crook of Sam’s neck, his hair a damp mess against Sam’s skin, and that won’t do at all. It is awkward to nudge at Steve’s face with his own nose, and prod him into kissing Sam again. His hands tug Steve’s hips in their rocking motion, and when Steve fumbles, drops him, Sam is there to catch him again. Always.

The slide against Steve’s tailbone is a sweaty tease, and he imagines that the slide against his own stomach is about the same. Close but not quite. Almost, almost.

“Almost -- there.” Sam wants to keep quiet and he wants to make Steve shout. He wants to get off and he wants to keep Steve on the edge, this edge, for as long as he can make this moment last.

Steve’s eyes have closed but they fly open with a gasp when Sam rocks up against him. “Sam,” he pants, “Sam.”

“Baby,” Sam says, and he swallows Steve’s noises with a kiss, and when it’s his turn, Steve does the same for him.

They lie there for a moment, their quickened breath folding and unfolding -- into Steve’s mouth from Sam’s and back again -- and he holds on tight. The faint noise of cicadas streams in through the open window, along with the smell of fresh asphalt. Steve nuzzles up against his chest, content in a quiet way that stirs a fierce heat in his heart. This man is here, and whole, and his.

And honestly, superhumanly heavy.

Steve and his dense muscles have to weigh about a million pounds, a dead weight atop Sam’s chest. He runs his fingers over the bare tops of Steve’s shoulders, and with a groan, rolls them into a seated position.

“You weigh too much,” Sam complains between pants, leaning back against the arm of the couch.

“Aw,” Steve whines, as he’s made to sit upright. “No fair.”

He shoots Steve an _are you kidding me look w_ hich goes unnoticed in the dark.

“The bed,” he suggests, making as if to stand. There’s a propulsion calculation he needs to work out first: his center of gravity, low on the couch which groans under their combined weight; Steve’s sweaty tousled head resting atop his shoulder; the as yet untested question as to whether or not his legs work.

He counts down from five before he tries to stand. A wobble, but the landing sticks. He holds out a hand for Steve.

“Good night, then.” Steve closes his eyes, long lashes fluttering against his cheeks. 

“Come to bed,” he says, as he takes Steve’s hand. “Come to bed.”

“I can’t,” Steve says, with a sleepy smile.

“Why’s that?” Sam places his hands on his hips.

“Too nice right here.”

“Hell, no,” Sam tells him. “I’ve been missing that bed all day. “Get your ass in there,” he says, though Steve shakes his head. “Have it your way then,” and with that he hoists Captain America into a fireman's lift and hauls him into their bedroom.

He kicks the door shut with his foot and dumps Steve onto the bed. The box springs squawk in protest.

“You good?” he asks.

Steve nods, “So good.” Sam can feel him smile, even in the dark. "Happy."

He lies down beside the man he loves. All these people in his home: all up in his space, eating his food. Using his towels, running up the water bill.

Sam smiles against Steve's neck.

Happy. Imagine that.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sufficiently enamored of this pairing to have made [a stinkin' playlist for it.](http://8tracks.com/pitcherplant/migratory-birds-of-the-dmv)
> 
> I'm on Tumblr over [here.](http://pitcherplant.tumblr.com/)


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